DAYTONA 500 Media Day Notebook

Yesterday at 05:51 PM

Notebook Items:

• William Byron seeks rare back-to-back victories in DAYTONA 500
• Hamlin hopes to improve qualifying effort on superspeedways this year
• Will 20th DAYTONA 500 start be a charmed one for Kyle Busch?
• Indy 500 champion aiming for a rare double at Daytona
• Ryan Blaney has had plenty of close calls in Great American Race
• Joey Logano has turned the page on 2024 championship season
• Chase Elliott says impetus for Clash win surfaced late last year
• Martin Truex Jr.‘s retirement will have to wait another week

William Byron seeks rare back-to-back victories in DAYTONA 500

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron holds the esteemed distinction of arriving in Daytona Beach this week as the defending DAYTONA 500 champion.

Should he pull off the victory in Sunday‘s race, it would mark only the fifth time in the race‘s 67-year history that a driver has won consecutive DAYTONA 500s.

That short list includes the sport‘s all-time winningest driver, Richard Petty (1973-74), three-time series champion Cale Yarborough (1983-84), along with Sterling Marlin (1994-95) and Denny Hamlin (2019-2020). In Marlin‘s case, he is the only driver ever to earn his first two career wins in the Daytona 500.

Byron acknowledged the magnitude of the prospect of earning a second consecutive win in the Great American Race, but the 27-year-old Charlotte native seemed ultra-confident in his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team‘s ability to give it a good try.

"It‘s a huge deal," Byron said Wednesday during DAYTONA 500 Media Day at Daytona International Speedway. "This race is very difficult, the way this is structured nowadays and the way the drafting tracks are with this package. It is tough but I feel like just having consistency on these drafting tracks like we have the last few times we‘ve raced on them, we‘ve been able to be really good at them. It‘s just figuring out those last couple of things."

Furthermore, Byron added, "I feel like having experienced it the way it was last year really changed my perspective on the race as a whole, in a good way, obviously. I feel that‘s created some more motivation to get another one. This race, it‘s a lifetime achievement. It‘s something people reference everywhere you go.

"It‘s something that the first time in my career I‘ve had something like that. It makes it cool, it makes it more special, because you can tell people care about the race."

Hamlin hopes to improve qualifying effort on superspeedways this year

Denny Hamlin is a three-time winner of the DAYTONA 500.

Only two other drivers have enjoyed more trips to Victory Lane in the Great American Race—Richard Petty with a record seven wins and Cale Yarborough with four.

Hamlin scored his victories in 2016, 2019 and 2020, but since the advent of the Gen 7 race car in 2022, Hamlin has found it more difficult to win superspeedway races.

Part of the problem, he says, lies in the inability to qualify at the front of the field.

"Where I really feel like we‘ve lost results on superspeedways, it is because we qualify in the back, and once the track gets log-jammed two-by-two or three-by-three, there‘s nowhere to go," Hamlin said on Wednesday during DAYTONA 500 Media Day at Daytona International Speedway.

Hamlin said his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team has made qualifying at Daytona a focus this year. The top two spots on the grid were to be settled on Wednesday night, with the rest of the field ordered according to the results of Thursday night‘s Duel at Daytona qualifying races.

"We always said that qualifying didn‘t matter at Daytona and Talladega," Hamlin said. "That was true when you could really make a lot of moves; now it is really, really difficult. What I am just looking for is progression.

"If you look at all of the Toyotas, and we qualify on average 25th on these types of tracks, can we get that better? Can we move that number to 20th or 18th or something in the right direction to give ourselves a better chance."

Asked what a fourth DAYTONA 500 win might mean to him, Hamlin was at a loss to explain.

"I can‘t answer that," he said. "I tried to figure out what it would mean to win one, and I didn‘t have any idea until I won one, and I didn‘t have any idea, until after I won two, what two meant.

"It‘s all really, really hard to put into words—but the attention when you come back, you are in an elite class of drivers that have won this multiple times. It is just one of those things that stays on your resume forever."

Will 20th DAYTONA 500 start be a charmed one for Kyle Busch?

It took 20 attempts for Dale Earnhardt Sr. to win the DAYTONA 500. When he took the checkered flag in 1998, the seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion ended a winless streak that had reached 59 races.

Likewise, Kyle Busch has been frustrated in his first 19 starts in the Great America Race. The two-time series champion hopes he‘ll find the same magic Earnhardt did in his 20th attempt on Sunday (2:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Busch drives for Richard Childress Racing, just as Earnhardt did. Earnhardt failed to win a race in the season before his breakthrough victory at Daytona. Busch was winless last year, breaking a series-record streak of 19 straight seasons with at least one victory.

Busch, whose winless streak has reached 57 races, certainly knows the history.

"Twenty years of trying," he said wistfully. "There was another storied racer of the past that won on his 20th try and that was a pretty big deal. He was a former RCR driver as well, so it‘d certainly be nice to win that race and do it with RCR in the No. 8 Zone Chevrolet. So that would be pretty cool."

Nor does Busch lack confidence in the quality of Childress‘ superspeedway package.

"We‘ve had really good speed being down here," Busch said. "These guys build great (superspeedway) race cars, so when we go to Daytona, Atlanta, Talladega, we feel like those places are really good for us.

"We‘ve got really good speed. I just told someone that it‘s an 80 percent luck/20 percent skill race. Others would disagree, but I feel like you have to have a lot of things go your way, and you have to have the stars align. Being able to lead (after) the final pit stop is certainly going to put yourself in a really good position."

Indy 500 champion aiming for a rare double at Daytona

Hugely popular four-time Indianapolis 500 champion Helio Castroneves showed up for Wednesday‘s interviews with the national media smiling and optimistic. In other words, typical Castroneves spirit.

In his first official NASCAR Cup Series practice at the track—driving the No. 91 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet—Castroneves was second fastest among the rookies and 12th overall.

No matter how Castroneves fares in Wednesday night‘s pole-qualifying or Thursday‘s Duel 150, he has already been granted a starting position in Sunday‘s race as an Open Exemption Provisional—a special designation Trackhouse Racing requested from NASCAR more than 90 days prior to the race.

The provisional, which NASCAR granted, is designed to give world-class drivers who are not full-time NASCAR competitors a chance to race. Only one such provisional is granted per event.

Castroneves conceded it‘s all been a learning exercise, from negotiating directions from pit lane to the garage and how to properly pit, not to mention allowing more room between the car and pit wall than he is used to competing in IndyCar so the NASCAR crew has ample space to change the tires.

"Every step has been a learning process," said Castroneves, who will also attempt to race in this year‘s Indianapolis 500 in hopes of earning a historic, unprecedented fifth win.

"I‘ve been watching a lot of in-car cameras," he added. "Understanding a lot of the rules and being in touch with the guys (on the team) because the language is different. When you come out of the pits, normally they say, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa,‘ but here they say, 'Dig, dig, dig.‘

"I know it sounds interesting or different; however, it‘s completely the opposite of what I‘m used to. So, I have to adapt. … all these little details, even though it‘s a race car, it‘s very different. When you are in a big race like this, every little detail matters, so I am trying to study all these details.”

Throughout his time with the NASCAR press Wednesday, the 49-year-old Castroneves reminded reporters that, although he is thoroughly enjoying his time at track and behind the wheel in this new quest, he is quite serious about the ultimate goal.

"At the end of the day, I‘m not here just to cause attention,” Castroneves said. "I‘m going to do everything I can to do the job.

"But the camera cannot see the smile behind my helmet. It will feel so good. Super excited.”

Ryan Blaney has had plenty of close calls in Great American Race

Driving for Wood Brothers Racing in 2017, Ryan Blaney finished second to Kurt Busch in the DAYTONA 500.

The 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion was runner-up again in 2020 behind Denny Hamlin in a DAYTONA 500 that went to overtime and ended under caution.

In the eight years from 2017 through 2024, Blaney has posted five top-10 finishes in the Great American Race. In 2022, when Team Penske teammate Austin Cindric won NASCAR‘s most prestigious race, Blaney was in the mix for the win on the final lap and finished fourth.

Blaney hopes his experience with close calls will help him in Sunday‘s 67th running of the race (2:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

"I definitely don‘t feel snakebit," Blaney said. "I‘ve been lucky enough to be close a few times—finished second twice. I‘ve probably had a really good shot to win it three or four times, and it just hasn‘t panned out for us…

"If you make a mistake and lose the race, then you really have to think about, 'Hey, I‘ve got to do better in this position‘ and just learn from it.‘ It‘s nice to have been close, and you just hope to use those close experiences to help you, if you‘re in that spot again."

Blaney ran just six laps in Wednesday‘s opening practice, eschewed the draft and was 38th fastest among 43 drivers who participated.

"It was nice to get on track and make sure everything‘s doing well," Blaney said. "It was good that they had a practice before qualifying, because last year you saw some cars have issue in qualifying on their first laps on the track.

"We made one change and saw if it helped our qualifying speed, and then you kind of go from there."

Joey Logano has turned the page on 2024 championship season

Three-time and reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano showed up for the first official day of work at the track insisting his championship hardware is on the shelf, and he and the No. 22 Team Penske Ford team are simply at the starting gate again.

"Your confidence is higher, but that‘s the only thing that is different," Logano said of coming to race as the defending series champion. "You‘re coming off a good year, so you feel, obviously, solid about it, but we don‘t have a lead on anyone anymore. We‘re back to zero. The goal is no different. Our mission is still to win the championship. That doesn‘t change."

Logano is one of eight former DAYTONA 500 winners entered for Sunday‘s race but an addition to his 2015 win would make him one of only three drivers entered this week —along with three-time winner Denny Hamlin and two-time winner Jimmie Johnson—with multiple victories in the sport‘s biggest event.

While there are vastly different opinions on the style of close-quarters pack racing the famed Daytona high-banks produces, Logano said he not only likes it but feels a whole lot more in control of his destiny than perhaps some of his other competitors allow.

"I think you can control all of it,” Logano said. "I don‘t see what parts you can‘t. If you understand the probabilities and the chances around you and who‘s around you and what they‘re most likely to do, you can control most of your destiny.

"I kind of look at it like a card game, right? You can win with any hand, if you play it correctly. So maybe you don‘t have the best hand, but you can probably figure out how to do something with it."

Chase Elliott says impetus for Clash win surfaced late last year

For those looking from the outside, Chase Elliott‘s single-win season in 2024—following a winless, injury-plagued 2023—might appear to be a study in  mediocrity.

To the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion, however, it was a year of progress that foreshadowed his victory in the season-opening Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium on Feb. 2.

It‘s also a source of optimism as Elliott approaches the first points event of the season, Sunday‘s DAYTONA 500 (2:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

"The end of last year I think was really encouraging for us," said the driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, who posted top 10s in three of his last four events of the season and finished second after leading 129 laps in the fall Martinsville race.

"I thought we ended on a really good note—we were just a little late to the party, I think, really and truly. We were starting to run better, lead some laps there at the end of the year, had a great shot to win a couple races during the last month. I thought all that was really encouraging.

"To be able to build on those things, come out and perform the way we did on Saturday (at Bowman Gray)… Yes, the race went well, but all that started over the offseason in the things we were focused on and talking about and thinking about."

With a victory in the Great American Race, Elliott would be the sixth driver to start the season with wins in both the Clash and DAYTONA 500, joining Bobby Allison (1982); Bill Elliott, his father (1987); Dale Jarrett (1996 and 2000); Jeff Gordon (1997) and Denny Hamlin (2016).

Martin Truex Jr.‘s retirement will have to wait another week

Martin Truex Jr. has 34 NASCAR Cup Series wins on his resume and dominated the 2017 season en route to the championship. He won back-to-back NASCAR Xfinity Series titles (2004-2005) and is a sure-bet NASCAR Hall of Famer when he becomes eligible.

Although he retired from full-time competition at the end of last season, Truex has chosen to compete in selected races in 2025, beginning with this week‘s DAYTONA 500—a race he is 0-for-20 in but has a runner-up finish in 2016 by a slight 0.010-second.

Because the TRICON Garage team fielding his No. 56 Toyota this week does not have a charter, Truex will have to make the field on either qualifying speed or a good finish in the Duel 150. The two fastest "open" cars in qualifying earn a position in the 500, and the highest-finishing non-chartered car in each of the two Duels also advances.

"Not so much (different) getting ready for it,” Truex, 44, said of being an open car. "You prepare all the same. But I know when I leave here, I don‘t have to worry about where I‘m at in points or just anything like that. There are no repercussions.

"It‘s just, 'Have fun, hopefully have a great race, hopefully have a shot at winning this race for the first time.‘ That‘s the whole reason to do it, and really nothing else matters. It‘s kind of fun and feels more old-school. You race each race as its own. The rest of the year doesn‘t matter.

"But at the same time, we‘ve got to make the race first. And that‘s a different feeling, because I haven‘t had to do that since 2005. Qualifying is way more important. Usually, you come down here and it‘s qualifying or the Duels. It is what it is, and you start where you start. But now it‘s important, so a little more nervous early in the week than usual.”

One thing Truex has been looking forward to at Daytona is reuniting with crew chief Cole Pearn, who led Truex‘s 2017 championship run for Furniture Row Racing, then stepped away from the sport after the 2019 season and moved back to his native Canada.

"It‘s like it‘s always been, he didn‘t miss a beat,” a smiling Truex shared of Pearn‘s return. "He‘s already complaining about inspection, about the rules, 'Why are we doing this, and I can‘t believe you got me back here to do this.‘

"He‘s right back on track."

— NASCAR Wire Service —